1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of microphone support stand assembly. In particular, this invention relates to a long multi-position microphone support stand, allowing for a change in the position of a microphone support column and for accommodation of more than one microphone housing slot. The result is a possibility of use by people of different heights with different instruments, without adjusting the stand or the microphone, and the ability of use by several people and/or instruments simultaneously or one at the time.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Microphone support stand must be positioned in proximity of the performer's mouth. Therefore, the microphone's height has to be adjustable because it is used by a plurality of speakers whose physical height is disparate. Moreover, oftentimes, the need exists to provide microphone support for several performers simultaneously.
Two independent microphone stands are necessary when a singer-musician requires two microphones, a first positioned proximate to his mouth and a second positioned proximate to his instrument. Musicians who play several instruments at the same time, like a guitar and a harmonica, also need two or more microphones simultaneously. A group of singers and/or musicians need several microphones simultaneously.
The conventional adjustable microphone stand includes an elongated metal microphone support column. The column can be adjusted to move in various preselected orientations. However, this adjustment is not precise, takes time and creates high pitch noise that the microphone will pick up, amplify it and transmit over the loud speakers. Moreover, each performer and/or instrument requires a separate microphone and such equipment is bulky and complicated hardware not very practical for transport.
Prior art microphone stands that allow positioning usually provide pivotal movement at the position where a microphone is coupled to a microphone support stand, or at the position where a microphone support column member supports the microphone and is pivotally joined to the microphone support column.
Most existing microphone support stands are adjustable as to height. For example, many support stands include a telescoping upright member. A lock or latch means is used to hold the uppermost portion of the telescoping upright member in a desired position. Another type of telescoping microphone stand utilizes a tilting disk at the bottom of the vertically adjustable section of the microphone support stand. The tilting disk is designed to prevent the adjustable section from being pulled downward by gravity but it does not restrict upward movement of such section. A movable knob at the upper end of the stand is designed to tilt and release the disk to allow downward movement of the adjustable section.
Several microphone stands from prior art utilize a plurality of microphones housing slots. For example, Wolf, U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,303, describes a flexible, manually bendable housing having a plurality of openings for microphones. However, all the microphone slots are positioned one above the other.
Kanamori, U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,170, describes plurality of microphones arranged linearly at equal intervals. However, this invention is related to the apparatus in which all the outputs from all microphones are summed up in an adder circuit to form an audio signal. The present invention describes a microphone stand with different design and without the adder circuit.
Sakamoto, U.S. Pat. No. 4,703,506, describes a device with at least three sets of microphone units. However, this is a directional microphone apparatus wherein the simultaneously picked up output signals from all the microphones are summed up and filtered to produce the optimum sound from these different portions of the sound. The present invention describes a microphone stand with completely different design and without the summing and filtering circuits.
Eason, U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,789, describes a stackable microphone stand, containing several parts, each with its own microphone, positioned one above the other. The feature of stackability does not exist in the present invention and the microphones can be at angle to one another.
In all the inventions described as prior art, the speaker has to keep his head centered with respect with the microphone and, therefore, his motion is limited in hands-free audio systems, requiring manual selection of any one of the single microphone stands and microphone heights during the live performance. It is evident that these systems are less than ideal from the standpoint of ease of operation and convenience.